A tale of Homemade Potato Bacon Soup. I meant to make mashed potatoes. Ok, not mashed, smashed I’m FAR TOO LAZY to peel potatoes (and usually cut myself) so the skins are always left on, My smashed potatoes boiled up in the Instant Pot and I made the critical error of letting them sit in the water too long after cooking. They ended up sticky. Despite the sticky I added butter and milk and pretended everything was going to be ok. But it wasn’t. The smashed potatoes were gluey. Boo.

So what do I do to most everything in the fridge that’s an error or leftover? I soupified it.

Back into the Instant Pot went the sticky smashed potatoes with homemade chicken stock. I cut up a pound of bacon and cooked it in a skillet along with some garlic and onion powder and dumped it into the soup with some salt and pepper and dried chives.

When it was finished cooking, I added a few cups of milk.

OH MY GOODNESS. I don’t know if I just haven’t made potato bacon soup in a long time or if the bacon was just that delicious or if the sticky nature of the potatoes made a difference (I usually end up pureeing the potato base and add additional potatoes and I didn’t this time.) BUT WOW. Heaven. It was so damn good and hearty and warmed my soul.

And it also was gone within a day, partially because I made the proper amount of soup for two people for the first time ever, instead of for a family of twenty, but also because it was too damn good to leave sitting around for long.

I look forward to making this mistake again in the future.